Forget-me-not.

 I feel like Alzheimer’s and dementia are everywhere right now.

I hear about it constantly. It comes up and I learn that another friend, another co-worker, another relative has it.

My dad was diagnosed about a year ago. A co-worker’s mom has it. My aunt has been in really bad shape with it for years and is now completely incapacitated. I know so many people in this situation.

It fucking sucks.

That’s my dad with baby me.

From a big picture standpoint, right now he is relatively ok. Relative to what, though? I guess in my head it’s relative because when I think about Alzheimer’s, I think about not knowing who you or your family or friends are. Needing full-time care. Disappearing.

I know that it manifests itself differently in different people, but that’s what always comes to my mind.

So relative to that, it isn’t abjectly terrible. He’s lost a lot of weight and is noticably more physically frail, but he can get up and around for the most part. He goes to the gym every day. His short term memory is non-existent, he gets disoriented, and he loses everything, but he can still talk about politics and go to the movies and have a conversation. He reads books and watches the news. The disease has not caused him to forget his deep hatred for Donald Trump. To my knowledge, there has not been a single incident when he didn’t know who my mom is, or who my brothers and I are, or who his brother and sister are, or who his grandchildren are. He knows where and when he lives.

He knows his life.

It’s so hard on my mom, though. She is the one who is dealing with the relentless exhaustion and stress that comes from taking care of him. The ‘disease makes him even more yell-y and easily agitated than he already was and she bears the full brunt of it.

This is the “for worse” part of the marriage vows. But she carries on.

Greg’s mom has it, and the rate and extent of his mom’s decline over the past few months has been shocking. She is definitely losing herself and it’s heartbreaking to watch. This past week the family had to put her in an assisted living facility - against her will and with an excruciating amount of agita and tears - because it isn’t safe for her to be at home any more. Last night he and I were talking and he said that he had never felt such profound sadness in his entire life.

There’s also the selfish aspect of it. I worry about getting it. I don’t want my life to be that in the end. Women tend to get it more than men. But I am my mother’s clone and physically take after her side of the family much more than my dad’s side, except for the crazy little cowlick at the bottom of my hairline at the back of my neck. She’s fine, so maybe I will be too.

Maybe not.

I got involved with the Alzheimer’s Association last year and did a long bike ride to raise money for them. It was supposed to be a seventy-mile mile ride but I ended up doing seventy-seven because I took a wrong turn in the last stretch and ended up riding an extra two miles through the streets of Fort Collins. I’m doing it again - seventy-five miles in June.

Fingers crossed that I don’t get lost again.

Then this past weekend I got a wild hair and decided to do the one in D.C. - forty-five miles in May. It’ll be nice to have my dad there to cheer me on, plus I can use it as a training ride for the one the following month.

It makes me feel like I’m doing what I can, plus it keeps me in shape. Apparently exercise is a way to reduce the risk of getting the disease.

Anyway, it is a fundraiser, so I would be remiss if I didn’t post my fundraising link. All the money goes to Alzheimer’s research and to support for families - hotlines, support groups, things like that. Any donation, big or small, would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for cheering me on.

Stop refreshing. Just go.

 I know this is a tortured metaphor. Moms who had their kids in the age of the internet can probably relate.

In the early stages of my pregnancies, especially with Zeke, the various baby-growing sites took up a lot of room in my history tab. Babycenter.com was a big one. Thebump.com was another. I know there were more.

There was all kinds of information available. You could put in your stats and it would show you how your fetus was developing. “It’s now the size of a plum and its skeleton is starting to harden…” Comparing the size to fruit was a big one. Mangos. Grapefruits. That sort of thing.

Early on, especially for the first baby, you worry about whether things are proceeding normally. Are there genetic abnormalities that I need to worry about? Should I get an amnio? If I do, could I hurt the baby? Will everything be ok?

And with so much information, you search online and you search online and you search online for answers. This site says I should do X, but the other says I should do Y. This site says the likelihood of any issues are minimal. The other doesn’t use the word “minimal” - it says “reduced.” Is that bad? Which should I believe?

What is hard to get out of your head is that it doesn’t matter what the various websites say. None of them will change what is going on in your belly.

But you still cling to the notion that if you find the right article on the right site that tells you what you want to hear, then everything will turn out the way you want.

This is what occurred to me yesterday when we were trying to figure out when to head back to Denver after skiing in the mountains, and which route we should take.

We drove up at the crack on dawn on Sunday to ski with friends at Breckenridge, stay up there overnight, and then ski Vail yesterday. It has been dumping snow. Breck received 40 inches of snow in the last week. Vail got 53. The conditions are epic right now.

The skiing was incredible. Powder powder powder, especially in the bowls. So much fun.

But then it started snowing again as we headed back to the hotel. It didn’t stop. The highway up to the tunnel that goes through the Continental Divide closed sometime in the evening. We were incredibly glad that we didn’t have to get home in that mess.

We woke up to find that it had snowed 12 inches overnight and was still coming down. I-70 eastbound was still closed through the tunnel. As the day went on, it would only get worse.

We lay in bed pondering what to do. There was no way I was willing to go over Vail pass to ski there and then come back over the pass to go home AND have to deal with tunnel traffic. Maybe we could ski Breck again. But even if we did that, we would probably be completely screwed going home. What might have been a 3 hour drive in questionable conditions earlier in the day could turn into 5+ hours if the closures continued and the holiday weekend skiers got on the road back to Denver.

We decided to bail and head home. The beauty of living in Colorado is that we can always ski another day.

And thus began the battle of the navigation apps. This is Greg’s kryptonite.

Whenever there’s traffic, he is constantly checking the apps to determine the best way to go. If a particular route is moving, he would rather take that route even if it means getting to the destination slightly later, if the alternative is to sit in traffic that isn’t moving (and for the record, I am on board with this line of thinking). But even after making the choice and committing to it, he will keep checking the apps again. Did it clear up going the other way? Did we make the wrong choice? He agonizes over it. He gets agitated.

I try to stay out of it. I tend to be very Zen about traffic. I can’t change it, so I don’t get too exorcized. However he wants to go is fine.

Waze showed that the tunnel was open and that the drive home would be around two hours. We called bullshit - there was approximately a zero percent chance that that was true. The Colorado DOT site said the tunnel was still closed. There were avalanche warnings. Google said to use the southern route and avoid the interstate. Apple maps had us heading south over the mountain passes that were so traumatizing the last time I had to drive them.

I still get super anxious at the thought of driving over those passes, but at least this time we would be doing it in daylight. So we started driving through Breckenridge. Of course, Greg kept turning onto back roads because the main drag through Breck was super slow. He kept checking his phone and exhaling in an irritated manner.

But then Apple changed its mind because apparently the tunnel had reopened. It kept telling us to turn back.

“It’s saying we should go back. Should we go back?” Greg asked.

“It’s still snowing and whatever is going on back there is likely to get worse. When more people get on the road, the road will probably close again. Let’s stick to this.”

“But it looks like it’s slowing down going up to Hoosier Pass.”

“Whatever you think, babe. But let’s make a plan and stick to it.”

“OK. Let’s keep going. It will be an adventure.”

We put on an episode of This American Life and broke out a bag of peanut M&Ms. As we headed up over the pass, the traffic was slow over the snowy roads, but we kept moving and it was fine.

Coming over the Continental Divide in bad weather is trippy. We crested Hoosier Pass and as we came down the mountain, it stopped snowing. The roads were dry. There was even a bit of sun.

It’s deceptive. It makes you forget that the weather on the other side hasn’t changed.

Greg started looking at the navigation apps.

“It looks like traffic started to move on I-70. Maybe we should have gone the other way,” he said.

“Dude.” I responded.

We kept going and arrived home without incident.

Later he sent me a screenshot of the traffic later that night. Even hours after we were back in Denver, he couldn’t stop.

If we had gone to Vail, it would have taken us almost nine hours to get home. If we had stayed in Breck, it would have been almost four. Either way, we would have had to go home via Colorado Springs, which is insane.

The moral of the story is, gather information, make a plan, and go with it. This is true for most areas of life. Don’t second guess. Stop scrolling and refreshing. Just go. Your sanity will thank you.

Partly serenissima. Partly deliziosamente bizzaro. Partly magnifico.

When we decided to get tickets to a masked ball for Carnivale in Venice, I didn't really know what to expect. 

We had decided to take another big trip. It had been a while, and we wanted something fabulous.

So we made a plan to go to Italy in February, over the week of my birthday and, coincidentally, over Venetian Carnival, which I didn't ever know was the OG carnival celebration. 

The plan was Venice, where I had never been (Greg had, of course). Skiing in the Dolomites, which I had never done (Greg had, of course). And then impromptu tooling around for a couple of days without a set destination (which is the way Greg prefers to travel).

Carnival meant we should try to attend a masked ball. I had visions of elegant people in fabulous costumes in opulent rooms with plush furniture and a buffet that looked like something out of a movie about life at Versailles. Dancing a quadrille. Maybe to the music of a string quartet. 

And given the price of the tickets, it was not an unreasonable notion.

We bought clothes and wigs. A big dress and a big crinoline for me. A coat (I don't remember what you call that kind of coat) and pants (I don't remember what you call those kinds of pants) for Greg. We got the masks in Venice. It was quite fun and exciting.

Dressing up is fun! Costumes are fun! Venice is fun!  

It felt very appropriate. The night we arrived, we checked into our hotel and strolled around the beautiful rainy streets of Venice, and were delighted by all of the people walking around in extraordinarily beautiful, fancy costumes. 

Back when Venice was its own republic, it's official name was La Serenissima de Venezia - the most serene. That's what it felt like on that late night stroll after an extremely long day of travel. 

Our costumes were cheap ones we ordered on Amazon - it didn't make sense to pay hundreds of dollars to buy them ((even renting the fancy ones was crazy spendy). We still looked awesome, as far as I was concerned. 

On the night of the event, we first went to hear some classical music - Vivaldi's Four Seasons, which was lovely. Then we went and got some dinner. We were fully in costume, which many passers-by found charming, and then headed over to the venue.

It ended up being enormously entertaining. 

We walked in and up a very wide, grand staircase. So far, so good.

Then we walked into a grand room. There were very few people, most of whom were not talking and were sitting on sofas on the side of the room. Occasionally some would get up and walk around in a very stilted stylized way. The vibe was weird. 

As you can see, in the far corner there was a sad clown jester. He was weirdly dancing and keeping time by hitting a tambourine that appeared to be hidden in his pants over his groin. 

Oh, and all of this was happening to the piano accompaniment to ABBA's "Chiquitita."

It was at this point that Greg and I started laughing hysterically. 

Immediately people started looking at us as if we were the most vulgar, inappropriate people they had every seen. We tried to laugh quietly, but they continued to be very disapproving. 

After a while, I had a realization. 

"I think I know what's going on," I said to Greg. "I think these people are participating in this unironically. They don't see what's so funny or bizarre about it."

We tried to stifle our laughs.

Over time, the room, which did not have open windows or any other discernable ventilation, began to heat up. It became quite oppressive.

Which is when they brought in the next episode of entertainment - a belly dancer who played with fire. Exactly what you want in an unventilated room that is eleventy-billion degrees.

We watched (and giggled) for a little while, then I got to the point of being so seriously overheated that I needed to get some cooler air.

Downstairs we went out on a little landing that was right on a canal. The air was cool and the lights were shining on the water.

Venice is so beautiful.  

After a little while people were herded downstairs and into a tiny, unventilated room playing club music. I vogued because, much to Greg's delight, I am incapable of not cheesing it up.

Eventually the organizers abruptly kicked everyone out and we made our way back to the hotel. We walked over the Rialto bridge in the middle of the night and took pictures with a drunk lady who was delighted by our costumes and who came close to passing out with her head on my shoulder. 

We made our way back to our hotel where I managed to figure out a way to watch the last half of the Super Bowl on my phone. 

Pretty much a perfect night. 

Serene. Delightfully bizarre. Magnificent.

Vezzini always said, go back to the beginning

We always knew that for the 10 year anniversary, it would either be something epic or something familiar. Ten years is a big one. A milestone. 

Epic would have been Mt. Elbert, the highest mountain in Colorado. It's not a technical hike - a well marked and easy to follow walking trail - but it's long with a lot of elevation gain. The mountains we have done in prior years have averaged about 3000' of elevation gain and 7-8 miles round trip. Elbert is a 4500' climb over almost 10 miles. 

It's a lot. Doable, but a lot. 

On the other hand, the familiar was the Longs Peak trail up to Chasm Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park. It's not a 14er (not even close - it tops out near 12,000') with about 2500' of elevation gain. But it's absolutely beautiful and still a strenous, rewarding hike.

It's the one that started it all. 

This is the hike Christin and I did 4 days before Emma died. It was the best hike and the best day with my funnest friend. It was the one that made me crave being outside and moving my body and feeling so alive. 

It was the one that spurred me to start walking to work every morning. Walking and hiking became a source of healing. 

It was the one that made me decide to do a fourteener the following year to scatter Emma's ashes on the anniversary of her death, her Yahrtzeit. 

And then it became a thing that I did every year, and I started carrying the names of the lost loved ones of friends up the mountain with me, saying the Mourner's Kaddish for them all. 

(As an aside, I know this post is very link-y. It was helpful to me to look back at what I'd written over the years.)

As I thought about it, it became clear to me that going back to the beginning for a milestone anniversary was what I wanted to do. 

I have my list of names for the Yahrtzeit and I asked people if there were any they wanted me to add. The first year of the expanded ritual, there were 20 people on the list. This year I had 104, which astounds me. 

But then it became unclear as to whether we would be able to do it at all before the weather got bad. 

We scheduled the hike for September 7, but we had to reschedule because I got COVID. The following weekend Christin was out of town. The following weekend it snowed. The following weekend we were both out of town. The following weekend I made an impromptu trip to Virginia to hang out with my dad while my mom was out of the country. 

Finally, this past weekend, we made it happen, over a month after the originally planned date. 

Once again, the weather was perfect and it was beautiful and the hike was hard but rewarding. 

Walking up through the forest

Peacock Pool below Chasm lake

The final push 

Chasm Lake, with the Longs Peak diamond face just above it.

When we arrived at the beautiful lake, we found a rock to sit on. We ate and rehydrated, admired the view, and then I did the yahrtzeit ritual. 

For some reason I had a calmer feeling than I had had in the past, like I wouldn't cry (not that there's anything wrong with crying). Reading out the names was solemn but my breath didn't catch. 

Then halfway through the Kaddish I started to cry. 

As ever. 

We talked about some of the people on this list. We talked about Emma. She would be 27, a fully formed proper adult. Maybe she would be an airline pilot. Maybe she would be a lacrosse coach. Maybe she would be married with kids. 

As more time passes it becomes harder to envision. Life can take so many twists and turns between the ages of 17 and 27. When I was 17, I was living in India and starting college. When I was 27, I was living in Atlanta, practicing law, and dating someone who I loved but who would ultimately break my heart. I guess the practicing law part was somewhat predictable, but the rest of it was a big "who knew?" 

But then again, I was never one to be able to envision what the future was going to hold. At a job interview many years ago when my children were very young, the interviewer asked me where I saw myself in five years. I said, "you know, I have a baby and a toddler, a husband who works out of town during the week, and a full-time job. I'm just trying to maintain my sanity, get through the week, and keep everybody alive. I have no idea what five years from now is going to look like." 

I got the job, so I guess it was an ok answer.

Maybe a childhood spent moving from one exotic locale to the next gave me a level of comfort with the unknown, so I didn't worry about it. Que sera, sera.

Anyway.

As we descended, we talked about a million other things. The issues that some of Christin's therapy clients are experiencing. Interesting cases I've got going on at work. The fact that after two years of egregiously dicking around at school, Zeke suddenly decided to buckle down and now he has straight As (as does Josie). How my parents are dealing with my dad's Alzheimer's. A book I'm reading about the Civil War. The generational changes in sex discrimination in the workplace and elsewhere. Our families. Our relationships. 

The magic that is living in Colorado. 

Next year I definitely want to do Elbert while we can. Christin has pointed out that as the years go by, the 14ers are only going to get harder to do. 

But with each hike, however high or long, Emma will continue to be with us. 

A long, long time ago, I can still remember how that music used to make me smile

Throughout the eighteen (!!) years that I've been writing this blog - or lately, not writing it - my goal has always been to write the way I want to write, and write well, and write truthfully, and not censor myself. I certainly will respect peoples' privacy and confidences. I've changed names where necessary or altered the details of a story in a way that doesn't make it recognizable while still maintaining the essence of the story, but I always bristled at letting someone else dictate what I write. 

But over the past couple of years, it's been increasingly difficult.

My children are in their mid-teens. They are entitled to their privacy. They would be horrified and furious if I wrote about the details of their lives, or my experiences as a full-time single mother over the last few years, or the specifics of why it has been so, so difficult and draining and anxiety-producing. 

Enough people who read this blog know me pretty well, so there's no way to write about the kids without airing their dirty laundry in a conspicuous way.  

So I haven't.

I'm also in a relationship with someone who, except for LinkedIn, makes a point of having a minimal  online presence. He's not on Facebook or Instagram or any other platform. He's very private.

To my own credit, I have made a point of providing almost no identifying information about him. I have only ever used his first name, which I could go back through the blog and change to an alias. The Dude, perhaps. 

In any event, I have never provided any detail about what he does for a living or anything else that would allow someone to figure out who he is. You know that he likes to ski and hike and bike and see shows at Red Rocks and travel, but that could describe the majority of men in the state of Colorado. 

Still. I'm very careful to the point that I don't write nearly as much as I would if this were an anonymous blog. 

I also work for a public school district with an active and vocal parent community, some of whom have an eye on me and regularly curse my name on private Facebook groups because they think I'm a terrible person whose overriding goal is to make life awful for their children. 

Spoiler alert: hurting kids with disabilities is the opposite of why I'm excited to go to work every day.

The result has been that the things that have shaped my life over the past few years are the same things that I can't write about very much. 

So for the past 8 months, I haven't written at all. 

I've lost my time machine. 

I know I've talked about this before, but I can't emphasize enough how important memory is to me. Some people don't look back fondly on the past. There's a person I went to school with in India who has basically erased any mention or memory of our India life as much as possible, because she had bad experiences and hates thinking about it. 

But I've had the extraordinary good fortune of living a life that for the most part, has brought me great joy. That I love looking back on. It's why I love reunions. It's why when we go to our parents' house, my brothers and I always make a point of looking back through old photo albums (of which there are at least 20). It's why I make photo book after every trip I take. 

I hate it when I can't remember details. 

When people say, "don't you remember the crazy bus ride to Rishikesh when we went white-water rafting at the beginning of senior year? It was terrifying." 

And I don't remember that detail, and the not remembering upsets me.

I bring all of this up because my dad was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.

Fortunately, he is still highly functional. His short-term memory is pretty much nonexistent, and he repeats himself constantly, but he knows his life. He can still drive to familiar places, like McLean Family Restaurant to have breakfast in the morning, or to the gym. He walks the dog and reads books.  

He knows who he is and where he is and when he is. He knows who we are. And his love for us is boundless. 

He's never been much of a phone talker. He's always been loving and affectionate, but conversations consisted of, "how's everything? Are you ok? How are the kids? How's your car? Do you need money? Ok, here's your mother."

Not much has changed, except the statements are more overtly love-y.

"Hi sweetie. How are you? How are the kids? I just want you to know how much I love you. I love all my children. And I love my grandchildren. And I have the best wife. I'm so lucky. I've had a great life. Ok, here's your mother."

He has doted on me from the day I was born. 

He repeats that over and over. But those are repetitions that I don't mind at all. 

I'm thankful that he hasn't shied away from the diagnosis. He's not in denial. He's been proactive about seeking medical care, and recently started participating in a clinical trial for a drug that may help to slow the progression of the disease. 

I have a number of friends whose parents are also dealing with Alzheimers, or whose parents had it before they died. Some of them absolutely refuse to acknowledge it or talk about it. They won't go to a doctor. They are in complete denial. 

Not Barry.

He understands that in all likelihood, the disease is going to kill him. He has said, in so many words, "if this is what takes me out, I have no regrets. I wouldn't do anything differently. I've lived a life of adventure, had the best kids, the best wife. All of it. It's ok." 

We know what's ahead. We know that he will start forgetting more than just what he had for breakfast, or where he left his keys. 

Throughout my life, he has been such a force of nature. So funny, so smart, so crazy, so cool. 

Check out this cool mofo. "Effete Snob for Peace." Heh.

But he is noticably slowing down. He seems frail. It breaks my heart. 

It breaks my heart for my him, and selfishly, it also breaks my heart to think it will probably happen to me. 

So I am determined to continue making a record of my life, for myself and my family and my children.

I read back over this blog and it brings memories to the forefront. They stay in my brain rather than fade away. It means that my sense of myself is more comprehensive. I want to keep that going as long as possible. 

Which is why I need to start writing again. On a going-forward basis, and also to try to backfill events from the last 8 months. 

And that's where I am. 

The Evergreen Thanksgiving

Remember Wheel of Fortune? 

 My first year of college, we watched Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy most nights with the guys in the suite down the hall. To clarify, it's still on, so I'm not suggesting it has gone anywhere. But I haven't watched it in a million years, so it feels like a dinosaur to me.  

Anyway, in the Olden Days, when the winner got to the final puzzle, they got to choose five consonants and one vowel that would populate the clue, and then they had to figure it out from there. Without fail, they always chose R, S, T, L, N, and E. 

The evergreens. 

At some point, those were automatically populated and the contestant got to choose 3 additional consonants, which always made it more fun. 

But the evergreens were the evergreens. Always relevant, always reliable. 

Which brings me to Thanksgiving.

Specifically, the ubiquitous Thanksgiving tradition of going around the table so that everyone can say what they're thankful for. It's a lovely exercise that embodies the spirit of the holiday. 

And the things people are grateful for tend to be the same, at least in my house.

Family. Friends. Health. 

Always relevant, always true. Evergreen.

I think it was last year when we were going to start going around the table that I was like, let's each of us come up with something in addition to the the usual stuff. 

I wasn't suggesting that the usual stuff isn't great. Just that I'd love to hear about something else that people are thankful for. 

Eyes were rolled and I was quickly shot down. 

And I get it. The evergreens are evergreen for a reason. 

We went to Virginia a few days earlier than usual because Kristin was in the U.S. and she and Lisa and I planned a mini-reunion. We are in regular communication via WhatsApp, but we haven't all been together since 2016. I love these women. I miss them so much. 

So we met up at Lisa's house in D.C. and spent the entire day talking and laughing and being ridiculous. We squeezed Lisa's new boobs. We chatted with Kristin's son Lorenzo, who is a jillion feet tall and adorable and who may be the only 17-year-old on the planet content to sit around gabbing with a bunch of middle aged ladies reminiscing about high school in the 80s. We had yummy Mexican food and gelatto. 

Then we asked Lorenzo to take some photos and all hell broke loose. I have no idea when it got so crazy but by the end of it we were groping each other and laughing uproariously and at one point I was half squating in this weird way that looked like I was about to poop standing up. 

Now, to be clear, this is not surprising. We were supremely silly when we were in high school. We used to refer to each other as Lisa-Pisa, Wendy-Pendy, and Krissy-Pissy. We referred to the Bananarama song as "I'm Your Penis." If we were excited about something, we would say that we were getting a BH - Kristin's phrase for "boob hard-on." And on and on. 

So not much has changed, and I wouldn't want it to. It was the absolute best.  

Lisa and her family then came to my parents' house for Thanksgiving, which was lovely. We had such a big crowd that we moved everything to the living room. It took a long time to go around the table for the "I'm-grateful-fors." 

The number of people allowed my mother and me to go wild and mix and match
her impressive collection of glassware, napkins, and pottery. 

I tried to go rogue on my list, but in the end defaulted to family. And friends. And health. I'm grateful for my life.  

You know. The evergreens.